ABSTRACT
Like ex-President Aristide of Haiti, we all know how it feels to be caught ‘between a rock and a hard place’ with no obvious escape route. In his case the ‘rock’ was the stagnation caused by Haiti’s marginalisation from the world economy, the result of poor resources and a long history of meddling and exploitation. The ‘hard place’ was the added risk of dislocation and instability if Haiti were to integrate into world markets when ill-prepared to compete with others and manage the changes integration requires. Such choices are characteristic of economic and social transitions, but they are much harder to resolve against the background of domestic weaknesses and a hostile international context. Admonished by the World Bank for his failure to implement government reforms in Sri Lanka, ex-President Julius Jayawardena made a similar point: ‘with a civil war in the north, an uprising in the south, my neighbour rattling her sabre, and plummeting commodity prices, do you honestly think I can afford to set the civil service on fire?’2
